296 réponses à ce sujet

[HK-90210]

The thing hornyvivienne said that I take serious issue with is her statement that 'men don’t actually experience sexism in everyday life'. What a crock. I'd be more than willing to state that more women experience sexism in their daily lives than men, yes, But to discount the cases where culture heavily favors men to be more violent, more successful, competitive, sexually active, etc. is incredibly ignorant. Can you honestly say that if a man backed off from a confrontation, failed in a business venture, lost a competition, refused to have/pursue sex, he wouldn't be criticized? Sorry, sexism and gender stereotypes go both ways. And hornyvivienne shows a willing ignorance of this. It was hard to take anything she said seriously after that.

 

Besides, sexism is an area rife for conflict. And as anyone who works as a writer knows, story IS conflict. Without it, you don't have anything to tell. Also, one of the key components of the Dragon Age story is that everyone is flawed, no one is perfect. So why should society(made up of people) by any different?

 

hornyvivienne seems to be working from a viewpoint that a world without sexism is A. Possible and B. Interesting. On those two points, I would disagree. If the world did not have sexism, people wouldn't be flawed. If people aren't flawed, their characters are bland and uninteresting. And a world filled with bland and uninteresting characters is not one I would wish to spend a great deal of time. The best part of Bioware games are that the characters are full and rich, each with their own pros and cons. Just like real people.

[nici2412]

I was thinking over the comments about rape being a large part of the games and it hit me that it isn't really a case of sexism, because in DA:2 in particular it was just as often a man who was the subject of rape.

 

 It would be sexist if only a woman being raped would have been potrayed? So basically people are saying that showing the reality is sexist? And yes I know that men can be also raped but its very very rare in comparison to women being raped.

[Ianamus]

The Hadriana thing wasn't clear to me at all, nor was it ever confirmed like Danarius' was.

 

Danarius was never confirmed either though. It was strongly hinted at, but never confirmed.

 

There's no doubt that Hadriana was abusing Fenris, the only question is whether it was sexual abuse. I always got the impression that it was, but like Danarius it was never explicitly stated. I'll try to see if I can find the relevant quotes from Fenris in any case...

 

 It would be sexist if only a woman being raped would have been potrayed? So basically people are saying that showing the reality is sexist? And yes I know that men can be also raped but its very very rare in comparison to women being raped.

 

I think it's a matter of how it's portrayed that determines whether it is sexist or not. I certainly don't think any Dragon Age examples are. The fact that there is at least one blatant example of a man being raped simply means that marking all of Dragon Age 2's abuse plots as sexist doesn't make sense.

[SofaJockey]

There are a few interesting things here:

 

Casual sexism vs. plot driven sexual abuse

 

Dragon Age is a story based game involving conflict.

That conflict may draw from fantasy conventions but just as equally from real-life sexism, racism, greed, and desire for power.

These make for good stories full of drama and should not be willed away.

 

Take the DAO City Elf Origin Story: Dealing with Vaughan Kendals is an early pleasure in the game. The abuse of the elven women is a tough and dramatic start to the game. Skewering him is an easy choice to make. Actually, I have to meta-game and I skewer him playing as every other Origin story as well when I meet him later in the dungeon.

 

Where I have more sympathy with the original poster is with lines like: “I swear I’m the bravest one here and I’m a woman!” at the Joining. Why? Because there is no plot driving the line, it's just a throw-away line referencing women being less likely to be brave? If they had said it was because they were an Elf, that would have been more interesting. I'm not offended but it's certainly not the best line in the game.

 

Women singled out for abuse?

 

The original poster makes a case for: 

 

"Sheer amout of rape (against women) plots in the DA world - including darkspawn breeding.

I don’t need to play a game and be reminded how much men actually hate women."

 

I find these statements to be quite loaded and undermine some of the other good points made in the post.

 

Should we question assumptions underpinning game decisions?
Of course we should. But we should do so sensibly and with an eye to an interesting and dramatic story.

 

When Assassin's Creed IV got into trouble for whale hunting,

my issue with it was not the hunting pers se, which may have a place in a pirate game,

but that fact that it took two whole Humpback whales to craft a small pistol holster capable of holding only one extra pistol. Madness... 

[Ogillardetta]

We can force a male companion(Alistair) to have sex against his will with a woman, a woman that he hates. Imagine the outrage if we would have been able to force a woman in a dragon age game to have sex (against her will) with a male character in order for the player character to survive.

[WildOrchid]

Dat title doe.

[MWImexico]

... On those two points, I would disagree. If the world did not have sexism, people wouldn't be flawed...

 

This is wrong, use your imagination

[Sylvius the Mad]

Open discussion on this issue is valuable. Attacks on people for their opinions is not.

For example, Feminist Frequency once described the scene from DAO where the CE wedding gets disrupted by the humans who are stealing the women so they can rape them as sexist. And the humans in the scene arguably were (though they may just have been racist). But some people would claim that such scenes shouldn't exist.

And when playing a male CE, the scene (and subsequent action) is a bit weird. Your women get stolen, and you have to go rescue them. It's a stereotypically sexist plot.

But when playing a female CE, it's you who gets abducted. It's you who is due to be raped. And you get to pick up a sword and wreak your terrible vengeance as you rescue yourself. It's a Quentin Tarantino moment, and it's awesome. Now it's a plot that contains sexism, but it is not itself sexist.

I'm generally of the opinion that privilege doesn't matter when assessing questions of sexism or racism - it is a fairness issue and nothing more - but even from my aloof perspective I see the sexism in some of the plots. And I can see why people object.

Remember, sexism threatens all of us. If it is acceptable to treat some people unfairly, then it is acceptable to treat some people unfairly. Any one of us might find oneself within the disadvantaged group at some point when it matters.

Unfairness is dangerous.

[puppyofwar]

 

"Sheer amout of rape (against women) plots in the DA world - including darkspawn breeding.

I don’t need to play a game and be reminded how much men actually hate women."

 

 

......

EVEN if one is sexist, doesn't means he/she HATES the opposite gender.

It's far, far more complicated than that.

[sangy]

*Yawn* Grow up. 

 

What a boring read in a fantasy game thread.  No offense. 

[InfinitePaths]

I find Hornyvivienne's statements extremely ignorant, sexist and offensive.

 

"I don’t need to play a game and be reminded how much men actually hate women"

 

Wow...Wow.

 

 

I really don't understand how can these people call themselves feminists when they say such ignorant, hateful statements about men.

She states only women get hurtful messages/threats on the internet, only women experience sexism in daily lives etc.

 

I'll stray away from vivienne's behavior (so sassy) and move on to my opinion on all this is:

 

I agree that universes with social injustices can be interesting, and Dragon Age ceirtanly is.Though I wonder why we never see universes where:

-Women are the superior gender.

-White people are the submissive race.

-Homosexuality is considered high, noble and a rare blessing 

 

etc.

 

Copies of real life injustices that are in the current society or in the past are getting repetetive.I want something new.

[Grieving Natashina]

I find Hornyvivienne's statements extremely ignorant, sexist and offensive.

 

"I don’t need to play a game and be reminded how much men actually hate women"

 

As did I.  

 

I'm not going to dismiss the issue, and I've made several posts about feminist issues in gaming in the past.  However, I can say that after reading that last sentence from her(?), that's where I lost all respect for their point.  It's not that they don't have a valid view, I just have a hard time taking someone seriously when they make ridiculous statements like that.

 

Sexism can work both ways, as sadly demonstrated by hornyvivenne's comment.

[Degs29]

When did people start associating equality with an absolute absence of sexism/racism?  Sexism/racism exists even against the advantaged, so true gender/race equality is not going to eradicate it. 

 

No, equality means an end to institutional sexism/racism; that all men and women are viewed equally under the law.

 

Which, of course, is an aside from this discussion, but a necessary precursor to dicussing the topic.

[Chari]

Bioware have a healthy and good attitude towards the problem of -isms in their games 

There is sexism in DA and even ME, but it's not as bad as it is in the real life. It is strongly connected to the culture, religion, species etc just as it is in the real life. So it is present, but not too much. And what I love the most is that we can clearly see the attitude of the developers themselves: they disapprove. They use examples of sexism in their game to show how bad it is, how bigoted and hurtful it can be

They use sometimes sexism not because they see it as a good thing, but because they see it as a problem and they want us see it this way too

Well, at least in my opinion, I don't know what exactly is going on in their heads

[Dio Demon]

 

-Homosexuality is considered high, noble and a rare blessing 

I'd love to see a sci-fi universe where homosexuals are the dominant social class and heterosexual's are seen more as cattle/slaves

[Wulfram]

DA:O's was inconsistent in how sexist it was showing the world to be, and that was I think a problem.  Often it felt like sexist attitudes were being included thoughtlessly without particular thought, and this to me seems worse than if you're consciously depicting a sexist society.

 

The big example for me is Redcliffe, where it's totally taken for granted that the women should all hide away safely, while it's a man's duty to go out and fight, even if you're a fat coward like Lloyd.  In a world where there are many female warriors, I think that's problematic.

 

(I speculate that Bioware took some time to get a handle on how they wanted the world to work with regards to gender relations.  In the prelude, it seems like the chantry priests etc were written as male)

 

DA2 on the other hand was more consistent in depicting a society that wasn't sexist, except for few pervy guys who probably didn't need to be there.  And Isabela seemed to feel the world was pretty sexist in some of her dialogue

[catabuca]

I find it baffling that in a game that lets you kill a possesed child, slaughter an entire clan of elves (twice) and condemn casteless Dwarves to be turned into golems the thing that offended this persons sensibilities was a few sexist remarks.

 

Dark fantasy (and really fantasy in general) really isn't the place to go if you want a setting completely devoid of sexism.

 

I don't live in a world where young children are often possessed by demons, or where elves are regularly shunned, or Dwarves struggle to be seen as real dwarves by their kin. I do live in a patriarchy beset with sexism. 

 

That's your first difference.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Don't forget Tolkien been accused as sexist for its lack of female character too.  Despite his work is more akin to traditional epic like the Iliad or the Poetic Edda.

 

Not to mention racist because all his main characters where white, homophobic because all his characters period were straight, and the like. Which is stupid, Tolkien wrote mostly in the 1930's and 1940's, they didn't have the same view on representation then as we do now. 

 

And yeah, as far as sexism go Dragon Age is very politicaly correct. Female heads of church? Female heads of state? Women fighting with fairly little complaints on the male side, with a waifish Elven Inquisitor being as good a warrior as walking brick wall Iron Bull? Widely accepted homosexuality? Yeah, that's not really an accurate depiction of the real life middle ages at all. 

 

That said, Thedas has all the rest; the racism, the bigotry, the superstition, the power-hunfry nobles, all that good stuff. It just decided not to focus on sexism in a way, say, A Song of Ice and Fire has.

[Roses]

Now I might sound very indifferent, but I'm a female gamer who has done numerous runs through the world of Thedas, and tell you what - not even a single time was I bothered by something the other NPCs said to me while playing as a female character. The rape or other not very pleasant themes were unpleasant only because they are well, unpleasant, not because I was offended by them as a female. IMO people who sit and nitpick a game to get butthurt about things like this need a nice cup of "let's calm down and talk about it and forget about it".

The only thing I find bordering on offensive is the new female run animation in Inquisition. The hip swaying is so sick I swear watching that alone makes my spine hurt and wonder how many days until my female Inqusitor snaps in half at the lower back
But otherwise Dragon Age being sexistic? Not to me...

[Ianamus]

I don't live in a world where young children are often possessed by demons, or where elves are regularly shunned, or Dwarves struggle to be seen as real dwarves by their kin. I do live in a patriarchy beset with sexism. 

 

That's your first difference.

 

We all live in a world beset with crime, murder, terrorism, homophobia and racism. It doesn't mean that we need to get upset every time an incredibly diluted version of those things appears in media.

 

Dragon Age contains all of those things to a greater or lesser extent. What little sexism is present in the game is neither particularly special or notable.

[HK-90210]

This is wrong, use your imagination

 

I am. And I can't imagine a world in which sexism doesn't take place, and people are still flawed. Sexism is written into us on a biological level, and even when someone is being sexist without meaning to, it takes a lot for them to admit the problem and overcome it. Unless people are perfected(impossible in this world), sexism will exist. I guess my imagination is too grounded in that way. I don't believe that man(or woman)kind will ever get to the point where sexism doesn't exist, so it's not something I waste my time imagining. The only thing we can do is call people out when they do it and check ourselves when we do it. But creating an imaginary world without sexism means we take out a key component of how flawed people really are. I'm not interested in that kind of world. It's boring, and doesn't reflect what I know to be true about human beings.

[catabuca]

We all live in a world beset with crime, murder, terrorism, homophobia and racism. It doesn't mean that we need to get upset every time an incredibly diluted version of those things appears in media.

 

It means we should be critical of the way these things are depicted, not that they are depicted at all.

 

That's the primary argument.

[bazzybond]

Is this really an issue?

There is no issue here. This is why feminists get terrible reputations. Fight the battles that need fought.

[Shinblam]

DA:O's was inconsistent in how sexist it was showing the world to be, and that was I think a problem.  Often it felt like sexist attitudes were being included thoughtlessly without particular thought, and this to me seems worse than if you're consciously depicting a sexist society.

 

The big example for me is Redcliffe, where it's totally taken for granted that the women should all hide away safely, while it's a man's duty to go out and fight, even if you're a fat coward like Lloyd.  In a world where there are many female warriors, I think that's problematic.

 

(I speculate that Bioware took some time to get a handle on how they wanted the world to work with regards to gender relations.  In the prelude, it seems like the chantry priests etc were written as male)

 

DA2 on the other hand was more consistent in depicting a society that wasn't sexist, except for few pervy guys who probably didn't need to be there.  And Isabela seemed to feel the world was pretty sexist in some of her dialogue

 

The thing about situations like Redcliff is that you need as many bodies as you can get to defend the town and population and, from a purely biological standpoint, males are the more expendable gender. Therefore, you send the men out to fight and keep children any noncombatant women in the safest possible location.